A competitive local exchange carrier (CLEC) may provide local telephone service to telephones in a local telephone company's service area as an alternative to the local telephone company providing the service. Although a CLEC may provide the telephone service to telephones in the local telephone company's service area, the local telephone company provides the CLEC with access to the telephones in the local telephone company's area via the local telephone company's end office. Because the local telephone company charges each CLEC an access fee for each phone in the telephone company's service area to which service is provided by the respective CLEC, each CLEC must maintain an account with the local telephone company.
Often, business telephone users have multiple phone lines. A number of different local exchange carriers (LECs) may provide telephone service for the multiple phone lines of a business. For example, company X may have ten phone lines, five lines being provided with phone service by LEC-1 and the remaining five lines being provided with phone service from LEC-2. Suppose company X wishes to change its phone service to LEC-3, such that all ten phone lines will be provided phone service from LEC-3, which happens to be a CLEC. Because the local phone company associates the first five phone lines with an account for LEC-1 and the second five phone lines with an account for LEC-2, to migrate the phone service for all ten of company X's telephone lines, a customer representative of LEC-3 may enter an order with the local phone company to migrate the first five phone lines to LEC-3, wait for the completion of the first order, enter a second order with the local phone company to migrate the second five phone lines to LEC-3, wait for completion of the second order, and then notify the telephone customer (company X) that the phone service for all ten lines has been migrated to LEC-3.
Similarly, business telephone users often have more than one billing telephone number (BTN) with their telephone service provider (LEC). When multiple phones are provided with phone service from one LEC, but the customer has multiple BTNs associated with the multiple phones, a customer representative of an LEC may enter an order with the local phone company to migrate the phone lines associated with one BTN to the LEC, wait for the completion of the first order, enter a second order for the phone lines associated with a second BTN with the local phone company to migrate the second group of phone lines to the LEC, wait for completion of the second order, etc . . . and then notify the telephone customer (company X) that the phone service for all the groups phone lines has been migrated to the LEC.
Because multiple orders may be entered to request migration of a single company's phone service to one CLEC, the average handling time per order may be longer than if only one order was entered. Further, if the local phone company has a problem with the first order, this may cause a delay in processing a subsequent order.